Interfacial Rheology

All major Food and Drug companies (P&G, Unilever, Nestlè …) have strong research activities on structural and mechanical properties of interfaces. This research forges todays’ cosmetics, detergents, aerated foods etc… It is a number of years now that in Parma we study interfaces employing state-of-the-art mechanical and spectroscopic techniques. Among these, we recall GI-XPCS experiments at the European Synchrotron ESRF to access slow and local dynamics, and micro mechanical experiments at the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, UK.
This PhD activity shall be conducted within a project of the European Space Agency (MAP-DWS), and shall contribute to the understanding of the processes of creaming and draining in emulsions and foams: we shall contribute to an experiment on the International Space Station to follow these processes in the absence of gravity.

Nanostructures for medicine

Recent in-vitro tests have shown that porphyrin coated core-shell nanowires inhibit the growth of cancer cells; moreover, magnetic nanostructures induce lethal overheating of cancerous cells through the mechanism of magnetic hyperthermia. This strongly interdisciplinary PhD project will focus on the optimization of such nanosystems, by advanced microscopic and spectroscopic techniques in Parma or in leading European research centres.